Wounding cuts

It was presented as medicine, but the shock therapy being applied to Zimbabwe is poison. Three weeks ago President Robert Mugabe ordered that prices be cut by at least half. It was a panic response to galloping inflation, which had reached the point where the price of some goods was rising threefold each week. But Mugabe's decree is crucifying retailers - filling stations are being forced to sell petrol for less than half what they have to pay for it. In the ensuing summer sale, widescreen TVs, clothes, coffee, meat - almost everything except staple foodstuffs - have disappeared from the shelves.

While some Zanu-PF loyalists made a killing, thousands of shopkeepers were arrested for profiteering. Restocking has become near-impossible. Oil, soap and salt have run out in rural areas. On Thursday buying petrol with foreign currency coupons was barred, removing one of the last ways of filling up the tank. With arbitrary prices already set for basics from milk to cement (anything from 20% to 50% of the cost of production), the next step, according to the opposition MP David Coltart, is to militarise the economy. Zanu-PF are doing to businesses what they did to the white farms, and the effect will be just as grim. The price cuts were ordered by a committee of army, intelligence and police officers chaired by Mr Mugabe and gangs of thugs are implementing them by force.

None of this makes sense for those members of Zanu-PF with any stake in the future. The rationale behind the South African-sponsored talks with members of the opposition was that Zanu-PF stalwarts had more to lose from a collapse of the existing order than did those outside the party. Better to talk now and manage transition than lose all, the optimists argued. Since then the talks in Pretoria have gone nowhere, and last week one side failed to turn up. The whole operation appears to have been a delaying tactic, with South Africa's Thabo Mbeki outfoxed by Mr Mugabe. What then is the party's grand strategy? Zanu-PF bosses own many businesses that are losing billions of Zimbabwean dollars in the chaos, so why did they allow fellow party members to drive what was left of the country's economy off a cliff?

There are no clear answers. Even if Zanu-PF becomes a military regime, it will not be able to feed the people. Thousands of Zimbabweans are fleeing to South Africa, and there will be more as basic foods run out. The last thing South Africa needs is millions of starving refugees, and yet that prospect is still not concentrating minds in Pretoria. The US ambassador to Harare may be right when he claims that Zanu-PF is committing regime change on itself. But Zimbabwe may have further to fall before it finally slams into the ground.